When James Kranz climbed onto the roof of a Midvale, Utah, school to shoot video of his kid’s football game, a cop mistook him for a sniper, ordered the field evacuated and called for a SWAT team.

Kranz jumped from the roof and ran when armed cops ordered him to drop to his knees and show his hands.

He later told police – who ticketed him for trespassing – that he fled because he mistook them for snipers.

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Ric Griffith, of Kenova, W. Va., is putting together a backyard Halloween display of 3,000 carved pumpkins – with computer-synchronized lights inside that will flash on and off to the thunderous sounds of the “1812 Overture.”

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Sounds like this K-9 may have nine lives.

Agbar, a 3-year-old German shepherd, was helping cops in Gilford, N.H., search for an armed robbery suspect when he fell from a second-story window.

Uninjured and unfazed by the plunge, he stayed on the job – and led cops to the suspect.

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The mayor of Buenos Aires, Argentina, has set up two Web cams and several microphones in his office so voters can keep tabs on what he’s up to.

“I want the people to know how it is to run a city,” explained Mayor Jorge Telerman, who plans to have his “show” online 24 hours a day on weekdays.

Bet you anything, he has another office, out of the camera’s eye, where reality reigns.

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Chinese officials are trying to stamp out “Chinglish” – mistranslated English phrases on street signs and menus – in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

They plan to issue new translation guides to hotel and tourist-attraction operators by year’s end.

Among the embarrassing gaffes they hope to correct are signs that say, “The slippery are very crafty” (for slippery when wet) and “Racist Park” (for Ethnic Minorities Park), and restaurant menus that offer “corrugated iron beef” and “government abuse chicken.”